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The Lord Appears to Solomon

9 When Solomon had finished building the temple of the Lord and the royal palace, and had achieved all he had desired to do,2 the Lord appeared to him a second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon.3 The Lord said to him:

“I have heard the prayer and plea you have made before me; I have consecrated this temple, which you have built, by putting my Name there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there.

4 “As for you, if you walk before me faithfully with integrity of heart and uprightness, as David your father did, and do all I command and observe my decrees and laws,5 I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised David your father when I said, ‘You shall never fail to have a successor on the throne of Israel.’

6 “But if you[a] or your descendants turn away from me and do not observe the commands and decrees I have given you[b] and go off to serve other gods and worship them,7 then I will cut off Israel from the land I have given them and will reject this temple I have consecrated for my Name. Israel will then become a byword and an object of ridicule among all peoples.8 This temple will become a heap of rubble. All[c] who pass by will be appalled and will scoff and say, ‘Why has the Lord done such a thing to this land and to this temple?’9 People will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken the Lord their God, who brought their ancestors out of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them—that is why the Lord brought all this disaster on them.’”

Solomon’s Other Activities

10 At the end of twenty years, during which Solomon built these two buildings—the temple of the Lord and the royal palace—11 King Solomon gave twenty towns in Galilee to Hiram king of Tyre, because Hiram had supplied him with all the cedar and juniper and gold he wanted.12 But when Hiram went from Tyre to see the towns that Solomon had given him, he was not pleased with them.13 “What kind of towns are these you have given me, my brother?” he asked. And he called them the Land of Kabul,[d] a name they have to this day.14 Now Hiram had sent to the king 120 talents[e] of gold.

15 Here is the account of the forced labor King Solomon conscripted to build the Lord’s temple, his own palace, the terraces,[f] the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer.16 (Pharaoh king of Egypt had attacked and captured Gezer. He had set it on fire. He killed its Canaanite inhabitants and then gave it as a wedding gift to his daughter, Solomon’s wife.17 And Solomon rebuilt Gezer.) He built up Lower Beth Horon,18 Baalath, and Tadmor[g] in the desert, within his land,19 as well as all his store cities and the towns for his chariots and for his horses[h]—whatever he desired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon and throughout all the territory he ruled.

20 There were still people left from the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites (these peoples were not Israelites).21 Solomon conscripted the descendants of all these peoples remaining in the land—whom the Israelites could not exterminate[i]—to serve as slave labor, as it is to this day.22 But Solomon did not make slaves of any of the Israelites; they were his fighting men, his government officials, his officers, his captains, and the commanders of his chariots and charioteers.23 They were also the chief officials in charge of Solomon’s projects—550 officials supervising those who did the work.

24 After Pharaoh’s daughter had come up from the City of David to the palace Solomon had built for her, he constructed the terraces.

25 Three times a year Solomon sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings on the altar he had built for the Lord, burning incense before the Lord along with them, and so fulfilled the temple obligations.

26 King Solomon also built ships at Ezion Geber, which is near Elath in Edom, on the shore of the Red Sea.[j]27 And Hiram sent his men—sailors who knew the sea—to serve in the fleet with Solomon’s men.28 They sailed to Ophir and brought back 420 talents[k] of gold, which they delivered to King Solomon.

Solomon’s Other Activities

8 At the end of twenty years, during which Solomon built the temple of the Lord and his own palace,2 Solomon rebuilt the villages that Hiram[a] had given him, and settled Israelites in them.3 Solomon then went to Hamath Zobah and captured it.4 He also built up Tadmor in the desert and all the store cities he had built in Hamath.5 He rebuilt Upper Beth Horon and Lower Beth Horon as fortified cities, with walls and with gates and bars,6 as well as Baalath and all his store cities, and all the cities for his chariots and for his horses[b]—whatever he desired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon and throughout all the territory he ruled.

7 There were still people left from the Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites (these people were not Israelites).8 Solomon conscripted the descendants of all these people remaining in the land—whom the Israelites had not destroyed—to serve as slave labor, as it is to this day.9 But Solomon did not make slaves of the Israelites for his work; they were his fighting men, commanders of his captains, and commanders of his chariots and charioteers.10 They were also King Solomon’s chief officials—two hundred and fifty officials supervising the men.

11 Solomon brought Pharaoh’s daughter up from the City of David to the palace he had built for her, for he said, “My wife must not live in the palace of David king of Israel, because the places the ark of the Lord has entered are holy.”

12 On the altar of the Lord that he had built in front of the portico, Solomon sacrificed burnt offerings to the Lord,13 according to the daily requirement for offerings commanded by Moses for the Sabbaths, the New Moons and the three annual festivals—the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Weeks and the Festival of Tabernacles.14 In keeping with the ordinance of his father David, he appointed the divisions of the priests for their duties, and the Levites to lead the praise and to assist the priests according to each day’s requirement. He also appointed the gatekeepers by divisions for the various gates, because this was what David the man of God had ordered.15 They did not deviate from the king’s commands to the priests or to the Levites in any matter, including that of the treasuries.

16 All Solomon’s work was carried out, from the day the foundation of the temple of the Lord was laid until its completion. So the temple of the Lord was finished.

17 Then Solomon went to Ezion Geber and Elath on the coast of Edom.18 And Hiram sent him ships commanded by his own men, sailors who knew the sea. These, with Solomon’s men, sailed to Ophir and brought back four hundred and fifty talents[c] of gold, which they delivered to King Solomon.

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